


Blood and Blooms

by FelineJaye



Series: Maxvid Appreciation Week (2017) [4]
Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Bad end, Blood, Dark fic, Hanahaki AU, M/M, Pedophilia, Suicide, Survivor Guilt, pedophile!David
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 10:42:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13657350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FelineJaye/pseuds/FelineJaye
Summary: David had gotten very good at shaking off hanahaki ever since he learned only children triggered the disease for him. Unfortunately his methods aren't foolproof.





	Blood and Blooms

**Author's Note:**

> Please mind the tags. No smut this time, just tears.
> 
> I had a genderbend idea, as well, mostly involving transwoman!David and agender!Max but it was the Hanahaki idea that ran away with me. So I'm claiming Day 4 in the name of the (Rose) prompt.
> 
> Also I had more to write but this ending felt... Apt. So here it is.

After the Order of the Sparrow bonfire, David started coughing up roses.

It wasn't too surprising - not to Gwen and not to any of the campers. David had been coughing up rose petals for as long as any of them knew him. The surprising thing was that he went from the occasional handful of petals to full on roses. Stage One Hanahaki usually transitioned into Stage Two in a smoother manner. More frequent and larger quantities of petals, for instance. But his developed condition was mostly just met with teasing or encouragement for him to confess. If he was coughing up entire flowers then clearly his feelings were serious.

David laughed it off, saying it would be fine and for others not to worry about it.

That was the thing that stuck in Gwen's mind, when she thought back on it. If there had been any sign of what was to come then it was that. He had never said that he was going to confess. He had never simply said that he needed more time. Had never expressed concern that his crush might not reciprocate. He had just brushed other's off.

Which made sense, in hindsight.

When Bonquisha showed up at camp was when alarm bells really started going off in people's minds. If he'd been dating Bonquisha all the while, then why was he still showing symptoms of Stage Two Hanahaki? Had he never confessed to her? Had she not invited him to confess, when his feelings were so obvious?

Stage Two was the last chance to fend off the disease. Stage Three was terminal. Why wouldn't he take the chance to recover?

It wasn't too surprising - not to Gwen and not to any of the campers - when Bonquisha dumped him. Who would stay with someone who had Hanahaki but wouldn't say that they loved you? The obvious conclusion was that they loved someone else. So why stay when you were practically being used like that?

Not long after Bonquisha dumped him, David doubled over during a camp lecture and hacked up blood. Someone ran to get Gwen as he fell to his knees, still coughing wildly. The campers stood around him, their eyes wide, as they watched the adult in charge of them choke and wheeze like he was dying. They watched as he spat out a mix of blood and petals and continued to choke on something more lodged in his throat.

Max had been the only one brave enough to walk forward, as Gwen still wasn't there. He'd been at First-Aid **and** Second-Aid Camp, no matter how reluctantly. He'd pushed David over onto his side and had then pried open the man's mouth. He stuck two fingers inside and did his best to probe about, scraping out the stray petals and trying to find the blockage. He found something at the back of David's throat, pulling it forward with two fingers and then getting a grip on it with his hand.

Which was about when Gwen finally arrived, just in time to watch Max pull a long rose vine out of David's throat inch by agonising inch.

After David was back in his cabin with an air horn in case he started choking again, Gwen sat everyone down and explained that David had likely contracted Stage Three Hanahaki. He was in the terminal stage of floral-cough and that he... That everyone had to prepare themselves for the idea that he very well might not get better.

Her follow-up conversation with David was not nearly so kind.

"You **knew** you had Hanahaki! Why didn't you just tell whoever the fuck it is!?"

"It's not that simple, Gwen."

David had a bucket in his lap, the bottom of it wet with blood with roses of all colours a top the liquid. Coils of vines curled around the bucket's edge.

"Why not? Oh, shit, is it me and that's why you've been weird? Look, just confessing can help. If it's me then just fucking say it!"

She'd barely finished talking before David cut her off;

"It's not you, Gwen."

"Then who?! Who is it that makes this so complicated? Just tell them, David! You don't-" she tried to stifle a mucusy sniff, "Why are you just letting yourself die?!"

David blinked and tears pricked at his eyes, balling up in the corners. With Gwen starting to cry he didn't have the discipline not to join her.

"I ca-an't Gwen. I just can't." his voice cracked as he spoke, the emotion choking him up as the rose petals did.

"Why?!"

"I just can't! I can't tell him!"

"Fuck is this some gay homophobia thing?! You have hanahaki! Stage Three!!! Anyone would underst-"

"I can't, Gwen! I can't! I can't I can't _I can't Ican'tIcan'tIcan't_ **_Ican'tIca--!_ ** "

He stopped only as another rose pushed it's way out of his mouth and he had to stop and yank it's stem out of his throat. Blood sprinkled down into the bucket as the thorns cut his insides.

Gwen watched as he dropped it into the bucket. He should be in hospital except that there was nothing they could do for him. All they could do was making him more comfortable while he slowly died. While the roses filled his lungs. While they punctured his lungs and grew throughout his body, fertilising him. Eating away at him as if all he was worth was food.

Fuck; she was really crying now. She could feel the wetness down her cheeks and the salt stinging her eyes. She reached out a hand, putting it on his shoulder. She gave him a squeeze.

"Please, David..."

He curled around his bucket and added tears to the mix of blood and blooms. She held him, crying into the back of his shirt.

* * *

He got worse, of course.

The campers had joked about it at first. Nikki had wanted to know how much of his stuff she would get. Nurf had offered to help him the 'long and painful' part whilst brandishing a knife. Dolph had suggested that hospitals probably had a gas to put him to sleep forever, leading to the awkwardness of everyone in earshot and Neil shouting "Fuck that!" and storming out.

But he got worse.

Still coughing up petals, but now coughing up full rose blooms. Tugging vines and stems out of his own oesophagus  the thorns crimson with blood and sometimes with a chunk of flesh on them. As the weeks went on it became too real. Gwen looked more harassed than ever, eyes rimmed with red. She let David lead camp activities more and more often, shooting the kids a look when they didn't play along with what David wanted. It was painfully obvious that she was trying to grant a dying man's last wish.

David never lost his cheer but he did lose his energy. His eyes were as red-rimmed as Gwen's and purple bags hung under his eyes. He was pale and the campers noticed him starting to take iron supplements at meals. And then between meals. They didn't know what to do. David had been such a permanent part of Camp Campbell - more a symbol of the camp than its owner was. But now he was a very temporary part of the camp.

The children reacted differently: closing themselves off, crying in premature mourning, manic mood swings and volatile anger. The symptoms of mourning and loss were scattered and unordered but demonstrated in each of the children.

Gwen didn't stop coming to David's cabin and crying. Begging him to do something. To confess to his love. There were reports of people recovering from Stage Three. Sometimes it happened. Not often, but sometimes. She begged him for a miracle, for him to confess and fall in love and get married and **fucking live damnit!**

David didn't know what to tell her. Nothing he hadn't told her before.

* * *

He left Gwen in his cabin one night after listening to her argue at him. She'd cried herself into collapsing and he hadn't wanted his coughing to wake her. Speaking of...

He leaned against a tree and coughed blood and blooms into the dirt under his boots. Both looked black under the dark night sky, the moon mottled by the leaves over head. Through the coughing, he almost missed the crunch of leaf litter to his right.

David turned his bowed head and found a short figure staring down at what he'd just coughed up. The silhouette was familiar and as his eyes adjusted he confirmed his thought.

"Max." he acknowledged in a groan.

He moved up closer.

"So you're just giving up, then? That's it?"

"It's not..." it felt like when Gwen questioned him, "It's not that simple, Max."

He really wished the boy would leave.

"Yeah? Because it **_fucking_ ** looks like it."

His voice had wavered, betraying his anger. David could see his fists shaking by his sides.

"If you're not giving up, then what happened? Did you even tell whoever the fuck it was?"

"..."

"No, you didn't. Fine! Then **I'll** go tell them! Because this is dumb, David. I mean I'm used to you being a complete moron but this is the idiot icing on the moron cake, David."

David opened his mouth and gagged before pushing a rose bloom out. He held it in his hand, looking at the incriminating object.

"Gwen?"

"It's not Gwen."

"Campbell?"

"N-no. Not Mr. Campbell."

"Someone from town?"

"No. Max, please. Forget it. I can't tell them. So-"

"No. Why? Why can't you tell them? You have Stage Three. No one is going to be a dick about that. So why the hell can't-"

"It would hurt them!"

Rose petals burst from his mouth as he snapped. Max stopped, blinking up at him. David panted, trying to breath around the blooms in his lungs.

"Just telling- h-him would hurt him, Max. He doesn't return the feelings. He literally can't. I just feel like this because I'm sick. Not- Not with floral-cough. I mean I'm _sick_. And I'd rather die than hurt him. I'd rather die than get him mixed up in something that would only hurt him."

"David..."

"Because I-" he sobbed, "I love him so gosh darn much, Max! And telling him that could only lead to pain. And I would happily die over and over and over if it means avoiding hurting y- him. So- So- So-- Oh no."

He doubled over as his knees wobbled under his palms. Max started forward, his hands awkwardly held out in some aborted motion to help. So sweet of him. His knees wobbled more wildly and his legs collapsed under him. His coughs rung throughout the forest, the wretched sound bounced off of the trees. Max kneeled before him, watching as he shivered and convulsed as he felt the roseheads exiting his lungs and moving up his throat.

Two roses bloomed at his throat, stuffing his mouth full and keeping it open. Pink spit drooled out of the corners of his mouth as he gagged around the flowers.

He felt a tug and refocused his rolling eyes to see that Max had leaned forward and was pushing his fingers into David's mouth, trying to dislodge the blossoms from his mouth. He found the vine stems at the flower's base, eventually and pinched them between his fingers. With one hand braced on David's jaw, Max drew the thorny vine out of his throat. He slowly dragged it out, trying to ginore the blood and minor gore that the thorns had scraped up as they exited. He had to readjust his hand after reaching his arm span once, twice, a third and then a fourth time.

Eventually Max was left with a thick, heavy coil of vines in his lap and David was left panting and dripping with blood and drool and a wheeze in his breath.

* * *

"I just don't get it." Max complained for the umpteenth time in his tent.

"I know, Max." Neil droned, trying to ignore his friend's ranting before they slept.

"Who could it be? Why would he-? Fuck, he's dying and he's still super annoying!"

"Maybe just let him go in peace, Max. There's no fixing floral-cough, okay? Not stage three. Just leave it alone."

"Oh come on, isn't it getting to you too? The mystery of it? Where's your sense of scientific wonder, huh?" he provoked.

Neil rolled his eyes and then rolled over to face Max,

"It's not like it's a hard mystery, Max. Who is he around often enough to develop a crush on, cross reference with people present when he entered each stage, further cross referenced with how important those people are in his life. I haven't bothered to figure it out because it **doesn't matter** , Max. He still has Stage Three and he's still dying and it still sucks. Just get on with mourning, okay? It'll hurt less that way."

"Exactly! We said that - that it would 'hurt him'. But that's stupid; how could just hearing a confession hurt someone? Neil? Neil?"

Max looked over at the other cot in the tent, only to find that Neil had turned his back to him and had flipped the covers over his head. Ignoring him, again.

Well, Neil had given him a lead at least. Who had been at the Order of the Sparrow Bonfire? Who had been there when and in that period of time after Bonquisha broke up with him? Who was always around when David coughed the most? And out of those people, who did David most care about? Who did David have a close relationship with, put extra effort into to, be proud of, insist that they had so much potential...

Who...

Who.

...

"Shit."

* * *

Max didn't sleep well that night. It made too much sense. No adult could confess to a mere child - it would be like flirting. And children couldn't get hanahaki anyway so they couldn't reciprocate any adult's feelings.

It was him that David had feelings for. He asked around the next day, checking that it was only when he was around that David coughed up entire vines. He had the worst symptoms when he was around.

It had been him who had tried to get the bonfire going again. Him who had orchestrated the plan with the Flower Scouts to get Bonquisha to take David back. It had been him the entire time.

It was his fault David had contracted hanahaki. It was his fault he was terminal.

His fault that David was dying.

He couldn't stop thinking it as he dragged himself through the week. As he tried to smile for David and then felt daggers through his lungs for doing so. He felt compelled to be nicer to David, knowing it was all his fault that the man was dying. But every time he did something nice he wondered if he was just making it worse, giving David more reasons to love him. Was he making David's last moments happier or was he killing him faster?

He was killing him, any which way. Max couldn't stop thinking that as he held the thick rose vines in his hands. They were still fresh, as hanahaki plants tended to be. Still strong. He tugged them between his hands. They'd have a hard time snapping under mere weight. Under any sudden tension.

It was his fault that David was dying, after all.

* * *

Gwen shook David awake the next morning, ecstatic. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, more sleepy than she was. He'd been suffering enough bloodloss and repository troubles lately that he tended to be lethargic in the mornings.

"Gwen?"

"There's no petals! No petals! Did- did you clean up last night or..! Or did-!?"

Her enthusiasm was badly restrained, her purple eyes gleaming. He sat up and, as her words pierced the sleepy haze of his mind, he looked back down at his pillow. Sure enough the off-white cloth was unmarred by fresh blood or any rose petals. He... hadn't coughed up anything all night? He didn't know how that was possible.

There was a high-pitched and growing sound. It took David a few moments to identify it as Gwen squealing in delight. As he looked back at her she swept him up in a tight, almost rib-crushing hug. He took the squeeze, awareness coming faster to him now. Was he really cured? Had his feelings just... gone away overnight? He let out a small wheeze.

Gwen let him go immediately, holding him out at arms length, her eyes wide with a tinge of fear.

David smiled at her.

He patted his chest, "Just a bit tender, I think. You were squeezing pretty gosh darn tight, Gwen!"

Her smile returned.

"This is fucking incredible. When do you wanna tell the kids? Or like, I dunno, your Mom or something??"

David smiled wider.

* * *

He smiled all morning until he realised Max wasn't at breakfast. Something deep within him dropped in his stomach, but still he smiled. He excused himself, explaining to Gwen, and went to the boy's tent.

Max wasn't there.

His bag, his clothes and even Mr. Honeynuts were all still there, so he hadn't run away. Trying to ignore his gut feelings, he kept smiling as he returned to the Mess Hall and asked Neil and Nikki where Max was. Neither of them knew and Neil reported that Max had been missing since before he woke up.

His grin was that of terror when he returned to Gwen and told her that Max was missing.

They left the campers on their own, doing Arts & Crafts Camp in the Mess Hall under strict instructions to not go anywhere and with the Quartermaster in the Hall for good measure. Then the two counsellors left to sweep the camp and the nearby forest, looking for any sign of where Max had gone.

It didn't take Gwen long to find him.

Familiar rose vines were tied around a strong bough. Max had always been good at Rope-Tying Camp. Too good, it seemed, by his stretched neck and bent head. He was more dramatic than she'd given him credit for, though. The thorns of the vines dug into the soft underside of his neck and rusty-red lines where scribbled down his neck and under his shirt's neckline.

She was sure it was the snapped neck that had killed him, though, not the little pinpricks from the rose vines.  



End file.
